Arts District Authority

Downtown Wilmington is central to many of TARA ENGLISH’s favorite childhood memories: She recalls getting ice cream with her grandparents and shopping with her dad on Island Passage.

“I’ve seen all of the expansion since the ’80s,” English says. “All the growth, all the changes. It’s still one of my favorite places to be in all of Wilmington.”

Now as an adult, she’s proud to contribute to that expansion through the form of Brooklyn Cafe and her real estate business.

About seven years ago, English and her family started Brooklyn Cafe, a quaint white brick building that calls 706 N. Fourth Street home. She’s also a broker/realtor with Tara English Real Estate Group, a six-person real estate team that she started from the ground up. On top of that, she’s involved with the Brooklyn Arts District Coalition and manages its social media.

Brooklyn Cafe’s menu boasts a variety of homemade goods, including beignets, old-fashioned cake doughnuts, biscotti, and kolaches. The cafe is most known for its old-fashioned cake doughnuts, which is a recipe passed down from English’s great-grandmother.

“My grandmother made them for all of us growing up,” English says. “It was sort of a staple item for our family. We just love them so much and wanted to share them.”

Her dad, who is a chemist, concocted the recipe for beignets, another popular menu item. “So, the recipes are homemade, everything’s made from scratch,” English says.

Prior to opening Brooklyn Cafe, English’s parents owned another cafe, Ollie’s Coffee and Donuts.

“We had a previous location about 15 years ago, on the north side of Wilmington,” she says. “Unfortunately, that wasn’t the best location at the time. We closed shop.”

Since trying their hand at another cafe, the business has gotten “a little bit bigger and better” and has more offerings. More recently, the family did some renovations, including commissioning a local mural artist for the cafe’s exterior.

As a member of the Brooklyn Arts District Coalition, English helped put together January’s Coffee Crawl, which took place in the district and supported more than a dozen local spaces. English describes the coalition as a group of proprietors who work together to communicate, host joint events and strengthen the district’s sense of community.

“I do work a lot, but I love what I do,” she says. “I love real estate, I love the cafe. That really helps when it comes to motivation. When you love what you do, you want to do it all the time. So, it doesn’t really feel too much like work.”

Looking to the future, English hopes to help other women become entrepreneurs and grow their businesses, whether through mentorship or simple discussions. “I feel like it’s important for us to stick together,” she says, “and just continue to learn and grow our businesses, and you know, just help other women out.”

To view more of photographer Daria Amato’s work, go to dariaphoto.com

Want more WILMA? Click here to sign up for our WILMA newsletters and announcements.